Scene one: Morning dawns, cold and gray. Fog clings to unfamiliar shapes under low, overcast skies. Several followers of Jesus walk through a dismal garden near the hill where three days earlier soldiers gave them his broken body. They took Jesus down, dead from torture and violence, and laid him on the cold, damp stone surface. The women who stayed near him even at Golgotha are back this morning. How are they going to get into the tomb, where a huge stone now blocks the entrance?

Through a crevice between the stone block and the opening, they see Jesus’ body covered in a linen shroud. The odor coming through the opening brings the finality of death close to them. They will need the spices they have brought, if they can just figure out how to reach him.